Lynchburg, Virginia’s Opera on the James opens second season with everyone's favorite: Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti

Lynchburg soprano Nora Moore, joins nationally known opera singers for fall performance.

Soprano Nora Moore, who has been described as a beautiful songbird, is making her debut performance with Opera on the James. She has performed title roles in Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Barab’s Little Red Riding Hood and as Henrietta in the New England premiere of The Construction of Boston. She has performed at Opera on the Lawn and as a guest soloist with Cantate. She enjoyed her local debut performance at the Academy of Fine Arts as Guinevere in Camelot.

The Opera on the James Board of Directors is proud to present the company’s second fully staged production to open the 2006-07 season, Mozart’s classic comic opera, Cosi fan tutte or The School for Lovers. The two-act opera will be sung in English, with supertitles and directed by company artistic director, Craig Fields. Conductor is Andrew Altenbach, principal guest conductor of the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and head of operatic coaching studies at Indiana University.

For this production, artistic director Craig Fields will produce the ribald comedy within the timeframe of its composition in Vienna, circa 1790, but will transport the action to the American colonies, Philadelphia to be precise, where Dr. Benjamin Franklin assumes the role of the opera’s wise philosopher pundit, Don Alfonso. As the young pair of insecure lovers is tested by Dr. Franklin’s pragmatic theories about ‘modern’ love relationships, Franklin demonstrates the power of his newfound scientific discovery, electricity, with great comic effect.

The cast includes soprano Lynchburg resident Nora Ivey Moore, soprano Penny Shumate, mezzo-soprano Perri Montanè, tenor John Pickle, baritone Michael Mayes and dramatic baritone William Andrew Stuckey as Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Stuckey returns this fall after a highly acclaimed appearance as Tonio, in Opera on the James’ spring production of Pagliacci. Patsy Bessolo of Roanoke will design costumes and former Mill Mountain Theater set designer, John Sailer, will design and construct the sets.